King Ends Mariners Skid

Felix Hernandez is the big grand prize that every team in baseball wants, but Seattle put him under lock and key and said, "not happening". Hernandez has not matched his Cy Young season of a year ago, but he's still pitching well enough to win as he did in a 9-2 victory over the Yankees. The win snapped the Mariners 17 game losing streak and evened the King's record at 9-9.

Hernandez walked four batters in seven innings, but limited the Yankees to a single run. Yankees starter Phil Hughes scuffled through six, but departed trailing just 2-1. However, Cory Wade, Boone Logan and the Yankees defense let the game get out of hand with three unearned runs in the 7th inning.

Ichiro, who was 4-5 on the day, led off the inning with a double off of Wade and Brendan Ryan and his bad 'stache followed with an infield single. Logan produced a potential double play ball from Dustin Ackley, but Robinson Cano's flip to second base was wild for a run scoring error. Logan walked Justin Smoak to load the bases and one batter later Mike Carp unloaded them with a triple when Curtis Granderson couldn't hold onto his deep drive to center. The final run of the inning came in on Franklin Gutierrez's double off of Luis Ayala.

As for Hughes, it wasn't a pretty sight. The right-hander is still in search of his stuff that made him so succesful in the first half of 2010. He allowed nine hits, walked two and threw 101 pitches. (65 for strikes.) On the positive side he worked out of a lot of jams. On the negative side...he was in a lot of jams. What Hughes performance showed more than anything is that the Yankees really do need to acquire another solid starter if they are to truly compete in this year's playoffs.

Notes

Alex Rodriguez turned 36 on Wednesday.

Rafael Soriano is likely to be activated on Friday for the four game set with the Orioles. Steve Garrison is the most likely candidate to be sent down.